This made our Friday! Everyone’s favorite mockup tool maker, Balsamiq, was featured in the New York Times today (and Confluence got a mention!!). I wrote a couple months ago about why I love this tool (I even used it last week to put a stake in the ground with my wife over our holiday card design – talk about over-engineering), but there are lots of reasons to also love the company. Peldi’s giving a master class on how to build a great company from scratch, and he’s a living, breathing example of some simple but meaningful lessons:
- Be open: Balsamiq is an open book. From thoughts on software piracy, to detailed analysis on revenue, Peldi is shooting straight from the hip and he’s generous enough to share a tremendous amount of detail with friends, foes and the inquisitive. There’s a reason why his blog readership is skyrocketing – every post is authentic and meaningful, and often an ongoing conversation between him and his readers.
- Listen to customers: It’s obvious that Peldi listens carefully to customers. From choosing a font to designing a critical new feature, Mockups is quickly becoming better from hundreds of small, creative voices. Lots of software companies talk-the-talk when it comes to this, but few walk-the-walk.
- Do something you love: Peldi’s passion comes through loud and clear, and shows in both his writing and his code. That passion is infectious, turns customers into fans, and makes the product more fun to use.
- Try different stuff: every business is a collection of gambles, and Peldi is doing a great job expanding and diversifying his products by simply giving things a try. We’re thrilled that Mockups for Confluence and Mockups for Jira account for nearly a third of his business (and if more of you gave them a try, it would easily double that – they’re just that good). And we hope that the XWiki plugin is just as successful. And beyond taking Mockups into different places, we wonder what other magic Peldi will come up with!
So, Balsamiq, congrats. And Peldi, we look forward to seeing you conquer your next major milestone (being pixelated in the Wall Street Journal, perhaps).